Barcelona to face Red Bulls at Giants Stadium

Just two years after sellling out Giants Stadium in a 4-1 exhibition win against the Red Bulls, Spanish giant FC Barcelona is set to come back to New Jersey.

Barcelona will play the Red Bulls at Giants Stadium on Aug. 7th, multiple sources told SBI on Thursday. The Red Bulls had been in talks with Real Madrid about playing that same week but those talks fell through and sources say Real Madrid is now focused on a summer tour of the West Coast.

Barcelona features world stars Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi and Thierry Henry and the match could mark Henry’s first game at Giants Stadium.

The international friendly would be the first high-profile friendly for the Red Bulls since these teams last played in front of a crowd of 79,002 at Giants Stadium on Aug. 12, 2006.

What do you think of Barcelona returning to Giants Stadium? Is it too soon after the last appearance? Is it fair to say you can’t see players like Ronaldinho, Henry and Messi often enough? Share your thoughts on the match below.

I think that you can never watch enough Barcelona if you care about the game at all. On a side note, it’s always interesting to see which players from the big clubs actually play in these exhibition matches. A lot of players will be recovering from either Euro or WC qualifying, but they always seem up for games in the states for some reason.

i think its a great how could you not like this. it will prob be another sell out, it will be a good chance for some barcelona players who will prob make the jump to mls at some point in their careers,(god i hope so)to get a look at a great american city. it just goes to show you that their are a lot of people in this country who like soccer, but only when the best players in the world are playing, fyi mls. Now all we need is the cba to expire so we can raise this rediculous salary cap.

Onionsack, no need for the sarcasm tag, because you’re 100% right. I lost count of the percentage of fans who were rooting for the frigging Galaxy in that 5-4 thriller, and on the way out of the stadium we made sure to tell as many as them as we could just how pathetic they were.

Also I find it amazing that no matter how good some news is, there is always going to be someone whining and complaining about it.

I’m actually quite disappointed about this; we just saw pretty much all of these players (sans Henry, Yaya Toure and a few others), and I was looking forward to seeing Madrid. I know it’s hard to argue about getting another chance to see Messi, but considering I work nights and will be taking the next day off to see Radiohead, I’ll be skipping this one.

And I’m with onion…I’m much more upset over the fact that I’ll be missing the DC game two days later than this one.

It’s never too soon to see Barca again, but I’ll be rooting for NY just like last time. When Youri scored and I started jumping up and down, all the random people around me looked at me like I was crazy. But guys, these are our chances to draw these fans into MLS. If we put on a good show, then maybe they’ll come back to watch some games that matter.

I too worry that they’ll be tired for DC, a game that matters much more.

Pete: I thought they hadn’t announced the Radiohead August tour dates yet…

These games NEVER bring in new fans to MLS. All it does is bring current fans and a bucnh of people taht love soccer and don’t care about MLS. Why does everyone always think “this time it will be different”?

We have played many many club friendlies here with Metro and that never did crap. Bayern, Gatalasary, Barcalona, etc.

Concentrate on building your club in the local community and get people to care about your club, thats how you build fans, not by upstaging your own product on the field with a better quality product.

If RBNY can manage to keep the game within 2 goals and keep their play competitive for the majority of the match this will show some progress for the side as well as the league. Even an MLS All-Star team would have trouble against Barca. Speaking of which, who is the MLS playing for their All-Star game this year? That’s proven to be the most compelling international friendly of the season over the past few years.

I tend to agree with Joamiq. The more soccer fans in the US the better. And, soprts fans in the US want to see the best athletes in the World. This gives fans a chance to see both a great club team and also judge how MLS is progressing.

I think this is much better than two European teams playing in NY, which is probably the alternative.